Genesis (Cain and Abel #1)

Chapter Twenty-one

"Vampire!" he screamed. "Vampire, you will burn!"

The brothers wisely kept silent. Abel was still crouched atop the pillar, with an excellent view of everything. Cain was below, concealed in the undergrowth. The rill had stopped the worst of the burning in his shoulder, but the burn was still a terrible injury, and would take a long time to heal. He was forced to wield the tremendous sword one-handed, and with greatly increased difficulty. They needed to cut this battle short, before they both became too injured to continue.

Abel scanned the landscape, searching for something to help him. There was the Fountain of Eternal Fire, of course. Amos had already bathed in it once, and become rejuvenated and fiery. What would a second bath do?

Kill Amos, probably, but there was no way to know. What he did know was that attempting to use it was risky. Abel had no doubt that it would kill a vampire in one agonizing moment; from above, he could feel the heat rising from it like a physical thing, and it occurred to him that perhaps it was this fountain, usually kept hidden, that made Eden the tropical paradise it was.

No, they couldn't risk the fountain; not unless it was the very last option.

Abel examined Amos, looking for weak spots. The sword was so long that a precise strike into an eye would drive right into Amos's brain, but Amos was now on the lookout for that sort of move, and Abel doubted they could get close enough. That left the heart.

Abel's keen eyes pierced the night as easily and keenly as an owl's, and he spotted the dragon's other weak spot: the delicate skin of the underarm. If Amos raised his left foreleg, a clever strike under the arm could drive directly into the heart.

Abel mimed this information to Cain, who signaled back that he understood, but could use a distraction.

Amos was recovering. His eye was a pulpy white mess in its socket, but greater concerns focused the dragon, and he sniffed the air and listening and searched the undergrowth with his remaining eye, looking for the vampires.

Time for that distraction. Abel stood atop his pillar and shouted. "Hey, Amos! Hey, you great ugly worm! Guess what?"

Amos whipped around, fire spewing from his mouth. Abel leapt easily to the next pillar, out of his way. "Guess what? Eve told us all about you. She told us how you were always teased and left out while you were growing up. Is that why you became evil?" (Dodging another flame.) "Because you had a tough childhood? Well guess what, we had a tough childhood, too. Our own village threw us out to die in the cold and then we spent the next thousand years wandering alone. But you don't see us" (dodge) "trying to destroy the world!"

"You don't know anything about it!" Amos thundered.

"Actually, I do," Abel said. "I have visions, you" (duck) "see. I saw how much Eve loved Adam. I saw how much she didn't care about you. I saw how you tried to get the Fountain of Eternal Fire before, and" (leap) "how Adam and Prince Joseph defeated you. And you know what I think?"

"I don't care what you think."

"I think you were right."

"I said I don't-" Amos stopped short, registering this. "What?"

"I mean, why shouldn't you turn yourself into a fire dragon? Sure, Eve still wouldn't have loved you, but at least the other dragons wouldn't have been so horrible. Because they were horrible, you know. You didn't deserve what they did to you."

"I-didn't?"

"Oh, you do now, of course, since you've gone on a rampage and murdered them all and most of the world with them, but you didn't then. You were an innocent kid. Weird and maybe a bit of a creeper, but that's understandable under the circumstances."